Dry Gardens

While in Borrego Springs, I loved seeing the dry gardens. The gardens typically use native plants (including cacti, desert flowers, and desert trees), drip irrigation, and have no water features (I did see some bird baths, and, yes, swimming pools). The gardens often incorporate boulders, desert sand, and rocks.

Our hotel, the Palm Canyon Resort (https://www.palmcanyonrvresort.com/), has recently remodeled their rooms and gardens, and now save millions of gallons of water per year. In place of a running stream, or other water treatment, they have several rock beds that represent dry streams. This is reminiscent of the rock, sand, or gravel used in Japanese gardens to represent water. The hotel also uses native plants, such as Palo Verde trees, Ocotillo, Chuparosa, Desert Lavender, and Brittle Bush. Drip irrigation is used to keep plants looking their best, but much less irrigation is needed for the natives, than would be required for non-native plants.

Oasis of shade using native plants and rocks
to represent a dry stream bed.

The Anza-Borrego Visitor Center (https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=638 ) also uses native landscaping. Their plantings mimic the desert floor, making use of spacing, rocks, boulders, and native plants. They implement a drip irrigation system, which keeps the plants looking their best.

Landscaping by the Anza-Borrego Visitor Center
looks like the desert floor.

A desert garden would be difficult to achieve in most areas of the San Francisco Bay Area, but some principles apply – using native plants suited to the climate, using rocks to represent waterways abstractly (and save water), and studying nature to inform garden design.